The Conscience Fund

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Hawke, president of the cigar trust, has been posted on the club hoard for membership. "The Man in the Street" observes this with dismay, and surreptitiously pockets the card. Street visits the convent of "The White Sisters" and greets Slater Nell. It is then revealed that Hawke is their father, and through his business dealing is considered by them unworthy of membership in the club. She is much troubled by the revelation of her brother and concludes to persuade their father to clear his conscience. Sister Nell visits her father and demands that he redeem his past by giving back his stolen fortune. After years of estrangement, Street also calls upon his father, and emphasizes the message that his sister has conveyed, but he is ordered from the house by his irate parent. At a garden party Sister Nell is collecting funds for good work. Here she meets her father, and they are introduced as strangers. He tosses a roll of bills into the charity dish, but she produces his application for membership in the club and tells him she will not accept his money until he gives back to the government all that he owes. She and her brother again meet and she tells him to inform the club of Hawke's ineligibility, and if he will not do so, she will. She then visits the club and is refused admission by the doorman, but she nursed his daughter back to life, so he kindly directs her to the fire-escape as a means of admission. She takes advantage of this offer, enters the committee room through the window, declares that Hawke is ineligible, and advises that they have the club detective investigate. Hawke, seated in his private office, is tortured by two visions of the past. The first shows Hawke's brother and partner, dead of heart failure, in the act of writing a confession, telling how for years they had declared only half their output for internal revenue, thus swindling the government. His son and daughter show him this confession, and he, after acknowledging its validity, burns it. Both lift the finger of scorn, crying, "Thief." In the second vision is revealed the convent, where the daughter, now a sister, is visited by her brother. He sees himself in the shadow, and is stung with remorse as they coldly stare at him. He determines upon restitution. He goes to the bank, draws $200,000, and addresses the package to "The Conscience Fund," U.S. Treasury, Washington, D.C. He then goes down to his garage, dons overalls, smudges his face, takes the package to the express company, gives it in as of "no value," concealing his own identity. The next scene shows the amazement at the capital at the reception of such a large sum, which is entered as "credit to a cigar maker." Slater Nell and Brother Street read in the papers the story of the largest contribution that has ever been made to the "Conscience Fund" and recognizes their father as the contributor. Nell declares that it is not enough and that Hawke must give all he has. They visit their father and Street informs him that he will be blackballed by the club unless he complies with their request. He promises to do so, is elected to the club, and then instantly dies of heart failure. The following morning it is read with astonishment that Hawke's heirs are "The Man in the Street" and Sister Nell, who inherit his estate of $3,000,000. A later scene shows the pair preparing to complete the redemption of their father. Nell brings her brother the robe and cowl of a Franciscan padre, and he takes the entire fortune to Washington, leaving it at the office of "The Conscience Fund." The last scene shows him back in his club, reading the order of the Secret Service: "Find that padre who left $3,000,000 at the office of "The Conscience Fund." He and his sister alone know the secret, and they are satisfied in that they have not betrayed their father's name or his sin.